Replacing workers with AI will increase income inequality

Replacing workers with artificial intelligence (AI) is a trend that is accelerating the pace in different economic sectors, as it represents cost reduction for companies; However, it has a negative effect on income and wealth equality, according to Ossiam, a financial asset manager created in France.

“The development of artificial intelligence will lead to an increase in income and wealth inequalities for several reasons,” said Patrick Artus, senior economic advisor at the firm.

In an analysis, the specialist commented that income inequalities increase because the use of AI displaces workers to jobs that are less proactive compared to those they had been doing.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that around 40 percent of jobs are potentially affected by AI as it replaces jobs more efficiently, forcing displaced workers into sectors where AI is difficult to implement.

Artus maintained that the introduction of AI will displace workers in areas related to legal and financial services, consulting and logistics.

“People who lose their jobs in these sectors will tend to enter lower-skilled jobs in less sophisticated industries, while the sectors in which they worked will increase their productivity by using AI.”

From Artus’ perspective, a divergence will be observed in the labor productivity of companies, and therefore in real wages, between sectors that can make significant use of AI and those where its application is limited such as construction, personal services, hotels, restaurants and the health sector.

Even companies that develop and use AI models and their suppliers are registering increasingly high stock market valuations.

This is the case of Alphabet, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon, as well as their suppliers such as Nvidia, electricity producers and operators of electricity or water supply networks.

In 2025, the richest one percent of Americans held 49.8 percent of the stocks and shares in investment funds related to these companies.

“The increase in stock market wealth, therefore, widens wealth inequalities,” the analyst concluded.

human factor

Asked about this, Carmen Rodríguez, in charge of the Public Center for Artificial Intelligence Training, of the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency (ATDT), commented that it is necessary to use AI to close the gaps in the labor market and not generate further lag.

“Technology cannot live by itself if the interaction with the human actor is not recognized.”

He explained that generative AI provides answers based on models that learn and recognize patterns.

“Generative AI is going to learn based on who designs it and who programs it (…) it is facilitating processes for companies and professionals,” he admitted.

However, Rodríguez pointed out that the speed of AI does not imply complete certainty or validity of an argument, since that is only generated with a knowledge construction process.

“Before there were 100 people in a call center, Now a team is programmed so that they can respond in record time. Economically, yes, it will reduce costs, but if you do not have an exercise of supervision and analysis and understanding of what that machine is doing, you have a loss of human relationship.”

Mining digitization

The Association of Mining Engineers, Metallurgists and Geologists of Mexico commented that AI has allowed extraction processes to be carried out with sensors, screens and monitoring operators, and to reduce the waste generated by the activity.

“Mining is being modernized a lot. I like to compare this with robotic surgery, which makes you go directly to evil and extract with the least investment,” he commented.